Visit The Hungry Ewe in Hoveton for cheeseboards, charcuterie and pates served with wine, ales and gins

Forget any 70s notions of wine and cheese; this is something that is right on trend. And leading the way is a new venue in Wroxham from the owners of The Scrummy Pig.

“We’d had the idea for a couple of years after doing wines and cheeses in the Scrummy Pig,” says Mike Fish, who owns the business. “There was a real demand for cheese and we found we could sell it so easily so that got us thinking!”

Mike hopes The Hungry Ewe in Hoveton, which he has opened with business partner Sam Tate, will become a big part of the local dining scene – and all without any cooking! “What we’re offering is cheeseboards, charcuterie and pates, served with things like honey and nuts and fruit.

“We’ll have wine, real ale or gin flights paired with the cheeses. And desserts will be quite fun – individual cheesecakes served with sugars and sauces and fruits and ice cream to dip and flavour them.”

The Hungry Ewe currently has room for 22 diners on the ground floor and 12 outside, with plans to expand upstairs.

“That will be really exciting, because we’ll be able to do things like fondues and raclette up there.” Cheeses from all over the world feature on the menus in the restaurant, alongside a Norfolk, and English board.

Bringing a local touch to the platters is important, says Mike, but they’re not afraid to bring in elements from out of the county, or even out of the UK, to enhance the experience of their customers.

“So we’ll have wine from all over the place – a lot of people prefer French and Italian wines so we have those, but we’ll also be selling Winbirri wines, and wine from Flint. When people are on holiday around here they want to try local products, but while we wanted to keep a link with what we do up the road [at the Scrummy Pig] we didn’t want to mirror it and water it down.”

Meanwhile the pair have been named Proudly Norfolk’s Food and Drink Champion 2018. “We were completely shocked,” says Mike.“We didn’t even know we were up for nomination. The first we heard of it was Anna Stevenson walking in through the doors with the award. We were really surprised and, given the previous winners, very chuffed.”